A free Mac app clears gigabytes of hidden junk without a subscription

A full Mac drive is a common headache, and many apps that promise to fix it charge a subscription. Wired recommends Purge, a free, open source app that shows what is taking up space and offers specific ways to clear it. It has no ads and no upsells. On macOS 27, it can also remove Apple Intelligence's offline models, which could free more than 10 GB.

What Purge cleans

Over time, a Mac collects clutter. One source is caches, which are files saved to speed things up. They help at first, but they can linger longer than needed. Another is leftovers from apps you uninstalled long ago, such as settings and cached files that stay behind. Purge is built to find and clear both.

Built-in safety checks

Purge works from lists of files known to be safe to remove. It also keeps a list of things it will never touch, including crucial system files and your own documents. It sends files to the Trash instead of deleting them outright, so you can recover them if something breaks.

How to use it

Download and install Purge, then open it. It shows what is using space on your Mac. A Clean Safe Items button handles the job in one click, but Wired suggests going through the tools one at a time.

• Caches: a list of items that are safe to clear now and then, including Apple's Aerial screen saver videos.
• Dev Tools: mostly for developers, but Homebrew users can clear cached installation files here.
• Largest files: shows big files, likely videos or other media, so you can move them off your Mac.
• Uninstaller: removes an app plus its settings, caches and downloads. Deleting in Finder does not.
• Leftover data: shows files from apps you already deleted. Wired's writer found several gigabytes.

The Apple Intelligence option

Apple's newest operating systems come with offline AI models. They power notification summaries, writing suggestions and the new AI-powered Siri. Wired says Apple removed the toggle in macOS 27 that let you turn these features off. Purge adds a tool that lists the installed models. One click deletes them and stops macOS from reinstalling them.

What to keep in mind

Deleting the Apple Intelligence models only makes sense if you do not use those features. Wired says you can still free plenty of space without touching them. For other items, the advice is to delete large leftover data only when you are confident you will not need it again. The Trash safety net gives you room to correct a mistake.